Sleep

I am emotionally, physically, and mentally on overload. Drained. I am so tired I wake up shaking. Normally, I have a tendency to over-do and Colby was the one who could always tell from the sound of my voice, the look on my face, the way I moved that I needed to rest. Granted, I have had a few others tell me that recently, and today I will take their advice. But Colby could catch it far sooner than anyone else. I will miss that. Somehow, I will need to learn to better gauge my inner resources.

Since the day Colby was born, rest and sleep has been a problem for me. When he was a baby I was afraid to sleep in case he needed something and I slept through it. What if he got caught in his crib, or turned over and couldn't breathe? As he got older he developed asthma. Then, of course, I couldn't sleep. What if he had an attack and couldn't find his inhaler. What if he needed to be rushed to the hospital, or I had to call 911? Then there was the usual childhood ailments: whooping cough, chicken pox, upper respiratory and ear infections. No way I could sleep then.

As Colby grew yet older and began going out with friends I couldn't sleep because I worried about him and I did receive my share of phone calls about car accidents or needing a ride because a friend had been drinking. More recently I couldn't sleep because Colby chose to be homeless. Where was he sleeping? Was he safe? Was he cold, hungry, hot, thirsty?

Now the process of going to sleep offers me far too much time to think, to process the loss, the sadness, the grief. So I don't try to sleep until I am exhausted. Then I am too tired to sleep, if there is such a thing, and end up dozing a few hours until morning.

I am not sure what the solution is. I have almost 24 years of sleeplessness. My body craves it, yet my mind resists it. Today I will lie down and and attempt to block the swirl of thoughts that come with inactivity. The usual distraction of a book is useless to me now. My attention span is still very short. Seconds. I find myself trying to read the same page over and over and none of it makes sense. And I find tv either grating with laughter, or depressing with talk of politics and health care reform. But I will try to rest today. I will try.